Adventures in Unplanned Parenthood

I know. You thought you were safe. You were at home, in bed, in the country you usually fall asleep in, and you hadn’t heard from this blog in months. It seemed the happiness might not ever end.

Then the heart is ripped out of your Monday morning as it becomes clear I pulled the Full MacArthur and have, despite no indication of invitation whatsoever, indeed returned…and you’re the Filipinos, dear readers.

Surprise!

The nicest thing to be said about The Full MacArthur is that military uniforms look dashing. It’s been a loooong six months, readers. I don’t do much dashing these days. I sort of waddle after my son, half-halfheartedly saying, “no, wait, stop, whatever,” while he breaks the land speed record in his age group in Running Towards People We’ve Not Met and Asking Them for Cheerios. Despite my lack of military training and acumen, (not to mention I have inner thighs melded together like two warm loaves in a bread machine), I am Gen. MacArthur. You’ll see.

My two year old son has a lot of incredible skills now. I really, really wish I could understand his brain’s prioritization method. For example, he now picks out his own T-shirt, insists on wearing socks and his favorite tennis shoes, and his major hobbies include scrubbing his baby toothbrush all over his lips and eating non-fluoride toothpaste as he washes his hands with my expensive body lotion. He’s a stylin’ little man with clean teeth and pampered skin. He enjoys doing all of this every day.

Yet he screams the howls of the damned when we insist on changing his diaper after he’s pooped. It’s so strange. He’s not attached to the urine, and he will wear another diaper. It seems to be the turd itself he’s grown fond of. I’m half afraid I could tell him I just want to put the turd in a nicer looking diaper and he’d let me do that. You can see how my skill set has improved; never once, even as a joke, have I offered him a turd-replacement program because, god help me, I am learning.

The thing is, Eduardo treats these like battle maneuvers! He’s willing to lull me into a false complacency because it seems like my tiny baby is now so big. He can do so many things, he’s practically a man. Then he unleashes the dogs of war over his bowel movements and I am so, so lost.

He really can do so many things now! He plays on the deck, he sits in the living room, he runs back to his room, he even sits up at the dinner table when we eat. Sidenote: the table is 75% covered in stuff we’ve brought in but not dealt with yet, so we eat on a corner of it like those sad people you see on Hoarders. Anyway. He goes all of these places now, has toys and activities he associates with each place, always learning new things about what we do in each location. Each location offers fun things: here we watch TV! Here we eat yummy hot dogs! Here we play with Oscar! Here we insist you nap in bed even though we know you lay down in front of the door and sleep there!

Every place has good stuff, is my point. But Eddie doesn’t care about that stuff. TV, cars, kitty cat, that stuff is for one year old babies. He’s two and a half now. All he seems to do is find crazier ways to be defiantly naughty while hurting himself, or, at the very least, hurting someone else. Eddie is the son of General MacArthur, you see? Eddie’s eye-to-brain filter must sound like the inside of a military forward operating base:

Soldier, situation report.

Sir, I have eyes on three possible weak spots. The enemy could climb to the top of the couch and jump off the back. It’s eight unprotected feet onto the wooden landing. He could crawl under this table and foment insurrection by dumping all of the cat’s food into the water. I like our chances of being able to crash the toy bulldozer into the screen of the TV, and I suggest we send a scout to find out if someone could fall and kill themselves trying to climb on the leather ottoman to see out the front window.

Understood, that’s a negative on that ottoman, repeat ottoman is a no-go. Rear unit reporting you can go outside and push the deck chair to the railing so you can fall onto the shed. Join up with them and proceed to the yard to discuss scaling the fence that leads to the busy street.

Sir, I already know I can try to push the deck gate open so tumbling down the wooden stairs onto the concrete would be a piece of cake. SNAFU though–getting to the deck requires the door and I only remember how to use a door knob bout half the time. I want to proceed towards the back hall. Intelligence suggests opening the toilet bowl lid and seeing how much trouble could be stirred up by scooping up toilet water with the bath toys then drinking it while we slide down the stairs on the bathmat.

Roger that, MacArthur. 5:30 is chow in the mess hall, and we do mean mess, soldier. Do your very worst. Over and out.

My final clue that MacArthur and I are sharing brain space is that he knew the power of a good, strategic retreat. Gotta say, that’s been damn useful. We can’t fight every battle every time. Eddie’s very worst offenses (hurting our pet) can’t be treated like the stupid stuff (throwing food at dinner). It’s just the stupid stuff happens soooooooooooooooo maaaaaaaaaany times a day. He knows he’s doing it, too, so then it becomes a question of limit testing. But I gotta say, I’m holding the line on the poop offensive. Because it is. It is rankly offensive, especially in 100 degree heat.

So, as things progress this summer in our battle to reclaim the house, I hope to let you know how much ground my son let’s me pretend I’ve made. Until then, this is Douglas MacArthur, signing off. Good day to you, Filipinos!

One of Mac’s favorite stories of his youth involves a soccer game where many of the players were not white. One player made a racist comment, and then Mac’s teammate looked up in total disbelief, saw all of the different people on the field, and in laughing, sneering disbelief said “Oh yeah, let’s get racial.” The moment was quickly diffused in a smattering of “OK, that was stupid.”

I want to look around America tonight and say, on November 8th, 2016, “Oh yeah, let’s get political.” Because it ALL is. The Trump votes, the Hillary votes, the Johnson/3rd Party/write in/Mickey Mouse… all of them are statements about us running around trying to protect ourselves and those we love. Except tonight, I feel a fear I have never known before. I thought I knew fear. But not like this. This is different.

Many times I don’t agree with some of the things Republican candidates say, but I’m also grateful they are there, because if people like me run the system you’re going to have a government where every person in America has 87 social programs, there will be entitlements for dogs and cats, and comprehensive life-care for every living being goldfish-sized and up. This is not practical. The GOP NEEDS to rein me in. However, in this election, I didn’t hear policy discussions, I heard more about The Wall, foreigners have to be the “right kind,” putting Muslims on a registration list, the inferiority of the Mexican people crossing our borders, and that it’s okay to make fun of the disabled.

My husband is from another country, I walk with a cane, and our son is named Eduardo.

A Trump administration is not going to go well for us.

I mean, what do I tell my kid if he hears that Mexicans are generally inferior people? I can tell him, all I want, that it doesn’t mean him, he was born here…but why do I need to split hairs? Oh, well, your bio-parents weren’t born here, but you were, so the magical healing properties of Iowan tap water have cleansed you of the sins of your people? Oh, some brown people are bad because they came here, but you were already here so pin a note on your shirt and the kids won’t make fun of you? No. It’s no good.

So that’s why I’m scared now. I’m scared for him. It’s not as though tomorrow everything will be different. He’ll throw his breakfast on the floor, go to daycare, come home and throw dinner on the floor, mommy will cry in the bathroom because two year olds don’t eat and subsist off of whatever food they find while they’re on the floor. It will be slow. Gradual, I suppose. How many years do we have, though? Two? Three? Seven (she wrote, fearfully)? Will I have a nine year old who gets taunted because somebody figured out “Eddie” isn’t short for “Edwin?”

If you happened to vote for Trump, and feel my concerns are not merited, please leave a comment below. I’m serious. I need to know who among the majority were voting on the record of his policy decisions, or because they liked his hair, he’s anti-establishment, whatever. I want friends if the revolution comes. I left a pretty good track record of my liberal leanings and make no apology for that. But if I’m going to be first against that damn wall when the revolution comes, please, please take care of Eddie.

He really didn’t do anything wrong. Not even being Mexican. Oh yeah. I got racial.

Mac and I have had no idea why the switched flipped and our son transformed into Suboptimal Prime. He started the Terrible Two’s about 6 weeks ago and absolutely anything within reach of his adorable little fists is now “MINE!” There is no thought process to determine why it’s his or why he wants it; it’s just his. His favorite toy this week is an empty, rinsed 1/2 gallon milk jug. He fished it (see, Seagull! I told you so) out of recycling and now Milk Jug is a beloved companion. Milk Jug goes all over our house. It doesn’t come with us to Grandma’s because Son of Milk Jug resides with her.

May the good Lord protect and comfort you if you try to take away Milk Jug. Eddie immediately throws his head back, drops to the floor in protest and then screams “MIIIINE! MIIIIINE!” until Milk Jug or another distraction comes along.

The baffling part is where he got the word. It’s not like Mac and I roam around the house every day announcing possession of worldly goods. “My meatloaf! My panty liners! Our new water softener that cost $250 to install so don’t kick it!” Hell, I’m listening to Mac deal with our son right now. Outside our bedroom door he’s arguing that while he concedes that a bottle with a nipple on top could be, de facto, Eddie’s bottle, Eddie still can’t scream “MINE!” insofar as we won’t let him drink the rotten milk inside said bottle. We’re mean like that.

Our biggest struggle is the cat. Of course you knew this. It’s always the cat.

Oscar will tolerate a few seconds of Eddie’s hugs and petting, even kisses on the nose. But then it’s too much, and Oscar takes a swipe at him. Ordinarily I’d concede that Oscar is his own man (own cat? Own feline?) and, as such, has complete bodily autonomy. But.

Tonight I was given a reason to think about why a university might do big tributes such as we saw for Cornhusker football player Sam Foltz, #27. I saw several people comment they thought it was way overblown, or they didn’t get what it had to do with the business of the actual game. As a member of the UNL family, please let me explain.

You were watching us recover a lantern.

For his family it’s a chance to cry again, this time supported by everyone around them. It was a time for all of his teammates to acknowledge loss, and it’s nice for everyone who watched him play to reflect Sam helped provide a community-building activity many Nebraskans take pride in.

What I want to explain is that tonight was a way for all of UNL to grieve, too. Even if we didn’t know the student, we know The Students. We spend so, so many hours trying to prepare for them, interest them, ask them to grow up, remind them to enjoy youth. We talk (imperfectly) to The Student, listen (imperfectly) to the Student, grade them and grade ourselves on the development of The Student. We’re trying to ignite growth.

Sometimes we’re floored by how remarkably young they look when a 17 year-old kid raises their hand requesting permission to use the restroom. Sometimes we’re floored when four years later an adult with the same name apparates beside your desk asking permission to list us as a reference for the application to work on the Hadron Collider at CERN, or The Lincoln Center of the Performing Arts. They’re trying to ignite a dream.

Everybody: The President, the Deans, the professors, the advisers, the support staff, the librarians, the lab techs, the coaches, the damned people who painted the “N” on the football field…everybody takes the ignited spark, places it in a paper lantern made of a diploma, then gives it a push. When everything happens the way it’s supposed to, our lanterns are long gone while theirs float out to the waters we won’t live to see.

There’s always a memorial on campus for a student who dies. Some are in classes but usually it’s departmental, within Greek houses, or by the fountain on Main Campus. So. For anyone who felt tonight was too much or blown out of proportion, that’s your right and this probably won’t change it. But if you were simply perplexed by the entire thing now you understand what you may not have known before.

August 12th, 6:30 pm: Mac and I stood at the altar in a ballroom decorated by a dear friend. My best friend AJ and our family friend Greg were the co-officiants in our secular wedding. Robin was my maid of honor, Mac’s dad stood up with him. We had written our own vows to each other. Mac was feeling real pressure since the wedding guests were about 75% Imes or Imes-adjacent people and he thought there may be a quiz afterwards. I’m not sure why a raucous, erudite, never-ending wave of the Clan Imes would be overwhelming for someone who identifies his family as having about 9 people. Nine Canadian people, which when you factor in their general politeness and concern for etiquette averages out to 3.7 Americans, but you won’t notice them because that’s an imposition.

My gown was an elaborately tucked ivory sweetheart neckline. I was allergic to my bouquet. Our song was Leonard Cohen’s “Dance Me to the End of Love.” My aunts helped cut the cake. Our moms had great dresses. Our dads and Robin gave terrific toasts.

On the whole, magic.

2015

My folks took El Niño (a favorite nickname for baby) last night. Mac and I had dinner and made a determined effort to not talk about our kid, and we did beautifully. After we picked him up the next day, our 5th anniversary was going to be watching tons and tons of sports and hanging out with Baby. We love the Olympics. Here’s the play-by-play:

OLYMPICS!!!!

Hey, kiddo! See the Olympics? What’s that smell?

Change diaper.

Did we feed him?

I dunno.

Me either.

Watch Olympics.

Did we ever feed him?

I dunno.

Feed.

Diaper.

Olympics!

Baby wanted to wave Canadian flag for soccer. Wave, Baby, Wave! He wants to wear a plastic bag on his head while he does it. Great hat, baby! Oh. Except not. No, plastic bags are not toys. TANTRUM. Baby threw Mac’s glasses in anger. “No throwing eyeglasses” is a VERY big rule in the Imes Borden household of late. Baby got a one minute time out, which he understands. Which is great. Except it exposes a haunting gap in Imes Borden parenting knowledge: We have no idea who taught him “time out.” We’re guessing he’s watching the older kids at daycare? In his age group I think they usually re-direct. My parents discovered he knows time out, but they didn’t teach him, either. If he’s had a Time Out Setting all along, that most certainly should have been divulged by the maternity nurses.

So. He’s being forced to stand by the vacuum cleaner at the end of the hall, a 60-second time out. He cried. Mac and I had to strategically retreat to the kitchen to not let Baby know this is at least 10 times harder on me than him, and his little wails are cute, and last time I had to leave because I was going to laugh at him, he’s so damned adorable in time out.

Then he comes out, where we immediately revert to “Time served, clean slate, let’s have fun again!” OLYMPICS! Good plan. Right up until Mac needs to go downstairs and use the facilities for a bit. So here I am, I have to keep Baby occupied, it’s not safe to leave him in the living room alone or he’ll mess up paused Olympics even if I have the remote. Mac says that’s not possible. Oh, but it is. It is. IT IS. HOW? If I knew how I wouldn’t let him do it and I don’t care if you can’t see how because he’s GODDAMN HARRY POTTER I DON’T KNOW HOW HE JUST DOES…now I also need the bathroom. This is how we get to the weirdest part of my day.

“HEY! You’ve been so good, why don’t you come in and help mommy go potty?”

I am not making this up.

He loves it when I tell him he’s being such a good boy, that yes, he can come in and help me go potty. (Let’s talk about how weird that thought is to ME another time). This is a non-stop thrill ride as far as my son is concerned. Listen to his little brain:

This is the part where mommy closes the door! Look how special I am, I’m on THIS SIDE of the door! Then, mommy does a weird thing about pulling her pants down, and sits, and her squishy tummy fat is all bunched up. I’ll poke my finger into her belly button! Everybody likes belly pokes! Mommy’s had so many surgical implements pass through that belly button it has a knot of scar tissue behind it the size of a golf ball; she will love it so much if I poke extra hard, to let her know I remember! It’s also cool to poke all the other scars. Mommy would never thank me ironically for that! What ar– Mommy there’s liquid coming into the bowl you’re sitting on and

WHOA.

This is an actual quote. The first time my son heard urine his eyes grew enormous and in a reverential whisper he said “whoa.” He knows when that stops mommy does whatever the weird paper thing is, and always wants to close the lid before flushing, so in his mind, “Really I’m a much better helper if I close it while she’s still on it! I’ll hit mommy in the back with the lid! I am saving Mommy so much time!”

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for…the Mystery Handle of Amazement. It sends things to another dimension. You can SEE Baby’s mind burning rubber it’s going so fast: Mommy we could put so many things in here! Everything we never wanna see again like a ton of Kleenex, a stuffed owl, my crayons, shoes, and everything I’m supposed to eat I don’t like which is now every food on the planet except plain, starchy pasta! What about the cat? Mommy would love it so much if I gave the cat a bath in here!”

After that, the last Big Treat of the night was trying to watch the Olympics, which can be summed up thusly: Katie Ledecky and Michael Phelps make a lot of money for NBC, and we are viciously, irrevocably old and out of shape.

The Baby has discovered crayons. I’m using “discovered” loosely here. His father, about whom I have many good thing to say, was a complete and total goober and gave our son crayons. Many, multiple crayons. First, he gave him skinny crayons (should be noted, these were labeled “washable”) then when too many of those broke, he got Baby those big, fat fuckers that come in Ground into the Rug Red, All Over Oscar Orange, Mom Will Yell-ow, Baseboard Black and my favorite, THESE DON’T SAY “WASHABLE” WHITE: NOW CUSTOMIZED TO FIT THE CREVICES OF YOUR HARDWOOD FLOOR!

To be fair, Mac provided a really nice tablet of paper. But the tablet is like, 9 x 12? Our house is many, many, many 9 x 12 spaces. That are at his eye level. His meaning Baby’s. Mac was a well-intentioned goober but his line of sight remains unassailable. For the moment.

So, how long do you think it’s going to take for the average toddler to run off the reservation with this? I can tell he’s doing it, because every morning there are more scraggly little crayon marks running across my white hallway doors. They are light (Baby has yet to discover the satisfaction of putting all your weight behind one of these suckers) and they run exactly horizontal across each door as though he’s testing to see what happens if he runs along and scrawls in his CLACZ (Chubby Little Arm Comfort Zone). I was wondering if he made a few marks every day, or made several all at once while Mac was doing something else. Sunday night at 4:30 am, I erased all the marks using a Brand Name Serious Scrubby Thing.

Oh. Why 4:30 in the morning?

I have bipolar disorder, chronic pain, and a toddler. If 4:30 in the morning is when my head, my abs and my ass can get it all together long enough to scrub walls, then that’s when it happens.

The marks were there when I woke up at noon, 11:00, 9:00, 8:15, meaning Baby is running amok, probably while Mac does something inconsequential like hygiene. This is potentially very bad. Or good. Is it the call of the wild? The need to be a bad boy? Tag his territory? Mark up the walls that won’t hold me in forever, mom? I have declared war on painted surfaces because I prefer my doors like I prefer my truth: unvarnished, unpredictable, and filled with messy complications WHICH YOU’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND BECAUSE YOU’RE LIKE 167 YEARS OLD, MOM.

Or is it “My colors need to be free! This is an expression of angst that I am kept down by your class system, your race system, your assumption that because I have chubby little arms I cannot soar like the eagle? WHICH YOU’LL NEVER UNDERSTAND BECAUSE YOU’RE LIKE 167 YEARS OLD, MOM.” If it’s this one, I’ll quit erasing them. That sounds like someday it could add value to a 2 bed, 2 bath split-level on the Side of the Tracks that Realtors Call ‘America is Trackless.'”

In the meantime, let’s figure out the math on what he’s using to mark up the walls. There were 16 in the first box, 8 in the second. He broke each Washable crayon into at least 3 pieces, making a box of 16 now, functionally, a box of 48 and counting. I never made it to getting a hold on most of those. These pieces were “cleaned up” systematically by letting Baby throw some of them through the holes in the gate at the top of the stairs. At most, it makes a tiny wax dot on each stair where it lands. I can live with dots. I’m hip with that. I like Georges Seurat as much as the next person who understands that joke. However, triage of the Throw-Zone yielded about 13 pieces, and I have 4 inexplicably whole smaller crayons, meaning that (in theory) 25 pieces of crayon are out of commission in this war on my walls, but 23 remain in enemy hands and we have 8 Big Boys yet to come. They’ll roll out like a Panzer division any day now. Or, the cat got into the box and batted them under the TV. He loves that.

We must understand this is a war of attrition. Because the bigger crayons are not unbreakable. And how many pieces might each bigger crayon yield? Also, where are the rest of the small ones?

How long do I have before he figures out the pens, pencils, colored pencils, hi-liters, Magic Markers, Charmed Markers, Muggle Markers, artistic charcoal and spray paint? How do I combat this? I can’t guarantee the 4:30 am Maginot Line Against Markers every night year in, year out, until he’s old enough forget drawing with markers and tries to huff the damn things.

Meeeeeeh…ok. I think I surrender. There are many things worse than my kid drawing on the walls with a few art supplies. He could hate art. He could be afraid to try new things.

He could take every bucket of leftover paint, every bottle of nail polish, every permanent marker in the house and paint a giant mural over his closet that stands for years and many people that come into our lives write on, draw on, sign… spending half a decade documenting the teenage years of an artistic but floundering girl and her intrepid younger sister.

Attention! Due to extenuating circumstances, the following MUST be kept closed to minimize the damage that can be done to, or done by, our toddler:

Our bedroom door. Immediately as baby enters there are three shelves within his reach. Two of them are decorative corner units (warning! Sap alert!) Mac installed to my sight line for when I can’t sit up. They hold some of the things I find beautiful or special that remind me of traveling. Among other things it has a Russian lacquered bowl, a matrushka my nephew is quite fond of (don’t know why this particular thing, but I’m happy to share) and a couple of jewelery boxes. There’s also very pointy wooden Buddha from Thailand, a family picture from 15 years ago and the first dollar I ever earned as a published author. My son loves the little bowl, but it’s only a matter of time before he pokes out somebody’s eye with Pointy Thai Buddha and that’s not a level of metaphysical introspection I have time for.

His bedroom. Eddie has learned pens and markers leave behind pretty, pretty colors. My husband keeps his work clothing in Eddie’s closet right now as Eddie’s sartorial needs are limited to “big spaghetti sauce stain but it’s technically clean vs. stainless, too small but everybody loves baby tummies.” Eddie wants to watch highlighters (we own 876, see also: professor) make pretty colors on Daddy’s dress shirts. The shirts for which Mac meticulously shops in higher-end, professional wear boutiques that tailor every piece as needed for him. The higher quality the fabric, the better they hold highlighter.

Under the sink. Sure, we have the childproof magnetic locks and all that, but you have to figure in baby’s need to open the left cabinet. Why? It holds the cat treats. It is a guarantee Oscar will come rushing. I look under the sink, I see under a sink with some sponges I should give up already, and the feather duster next to cat supplies. Eddie looks under the sink… and sees an opportunity to wield untold power over the cat. It’s all he ever wanted. Eddie screams “Gar! Gar! Whoa…Gar!” (Our new word is “whoa” and it gets used 89 times a day, plus whatever he says at daycare). My son follows his bliss. And then face plants himself into the soft, furry underbelly of the bliss.

The bathroom. He saw the toilet flush once and got so stoked the water was vanishing he stuck his hand in there to feel it swirling away. This wasn’t a test flush, by the way. This was a fully operational toilet scenario, folks.

The dishwasher. To be fair, Daddy loves it when Baby helps by getting out spoons and giving them to Daddy. So, the more engaged Baby is, the more Daddy will love this to the point of freaking the hell out, right? Baby is thinking “When did it become “wrong” to crawl up onto the door so I could find out how the green powder in the little rectangle-shaped dispenser tastes?”

The stairway gate. The slots of the gate. Throwing toy, after toy, after toy, a green bean, the diaper he just wiggled out of (oh yeah, true story) and more toys..we’re learning so much about the sound of plastic on wood, wood on wood, crayon on wood, and, in its most colorful iteration, Daddy on baby metal fork at 2 am.

The liquor cabinet so he can’t root around in there before bedtime.

I should also make sure Baby doesn’t do that

The entertainment system because good dowels gave their lives so that others might be safe. Never Forget.

When I need a snack at night, unsweetened applesauce in the total package: easy to find in fridge, low calorie, good for nausea, thick enough to cushion pills, and I can eat it silently in bed, perusing the internet for funny pictures of cats while next to me Mac produces an astonishing amount of body heat for someone who is neither awake nor the Human Torch.

Eat it silently.

***

fore·shad·ow

fôrˈSHadō/

verb

gerund or present participle: foreshadowing

be a warning or indication of (a future event).

***

Two nights ago I came to the kitchen, then got my Peter Rabbit bowl, then filled it with applesauce, then grabbed my glass of water, then padded back to the bedroom, then set down the applesauce, then put the water on a coaster on my bedside table, then climbed into bed to sit up and peruse funny pictures of cats. Then jumped up with a robust squeal as my left butt cheek tipped a child’s plastic bowl filled with cold applesauce. Right now, I’d like to use this platform for some sage wisdom:

When setting things down it is of vital import to remember where one did this if one wishes to collect said item with hands, not arse.

As you can imagine, Mac’s eyes opened PDQ when I squawked. I’m dripping applesauce onto the carpet on my side of the bed, where we keep a power strip on the floor. Two nights ago the power strip was hooked up to FIVE things, only two of them less than a hundred dollars to replace. I was frantically scooping up applesauce with my hands, trying to see how much of it got near or on the strip, and since the strip is how my bedside lamp operates I’m scared to turn the damn thing on. I replace my disgusting, squishy nightgown. Mac gives up sleep as a lost cause and heads to his bathroom, stopping to put my nightgown in the washer. I collect bowl, spoon, sodden Kleenex and such to get everything rinsed since we’ve already spent two months at the Maginot Line as far as kitchen ants are concerned.

Mac returns, shuts off his light, and I come back in with some wet paper towels (carefully kept away from electrical sources, thankyouverymuch) and a flashlight. Satisfied our bedroom is no longer a target for Ant Lebensraum, I sit back on the bed.

We have cream-colored sheets.

Guess what looks like a wrinkled shadow against cream-colored sheets?

I hadn’t seen the pile of applesauce puddled dead center of my butt imprint.

Oh, yeah. Same sauce, second verse. A little bit louder, and a metric shit ton worse. There are now TWO disgusting nighties (silky fabric for optimal conduction of frigidity, TWO soggy areas of bedside floor to clean, TWO times I have woken up my husband, an essentially good man, for absolutely no reason than my own terrible choice of late night snack. But wait! There’s more.

Our mattress pad has a heating element, like sleeping on a giant heating pad. I have no clue if the sauce got in there, and if it did, how do we clean it? I just said moisture and heat sources are mortal enemies. We can’t get clean sheets (stored in closet of Baby’s room), I’m still hungry, I haven’t taken the needed pain pill, my snack is lodged in crevices polite society doesn’t discuss plus Mac goes to work in three hours and his wife is having a breakdown over pulverized fruit.

Mac smiled gently and told me to get a towel. I miserably put a towel over the whole damn thing and reply, “At least I’ve got a blog entry. Can’t let this be for nothing.” Then Mac tells me, as the CPAP goes back on, “Erma Bombeck would be proud.”

Dear Readers, for maximum enjoyment of this piece, please visit the article at the website. There are embedded videos you may not be able to see via email or on certain phones. —SIB www.duetoextenuatingcircumstances.com

***

There’s not a good way to ease into this, so let’s jump right in.

My son is a God. Now, I mean that exactly as the words are intended to convey: that the small person over which we have custody is a deity. This isn’t “Mommy’s Little Prince” or “He’s such a drama queen!”

My son is the Norse god of thunder, Thor.

What are the signs? For starters, up until now we’ve been using the standard toy assortment every little kid in America seems to own: things with wheels, things that makes noise, and things that aren’t really toys but it kept him quiet so now they’re toys. His favorites come and go. Last week that ‘take it or leave it” attitude came to a shit-screeching halt when Baby discovered The Hammer. Say it with me now:

The hammer.

I can tell you’re not even trying. The Hammer. No, you’re still not giving The Hammer its proper due. Say it with reverence now, The Hammer.

Keep working on it. In case you were wondering, this is TheHammer.

Did you think you that’s what Mjolnir would really look like? Me neither, but maybe the people at Marvel have a crappy props department. If you’re doubting for a second this isn’t a Norse magical artifact, well pal, go screw yourself. I have HURT myself trying to separate my boy from this stupid hammer. This is what Mjolnir really looks like. I even went back to the movie and checked: if your entire life revolves around acting insane to the other people on earth, howling mightily and carrying on until your precious hammer is by your side…yep. You’re Thor. Full name, by the way, Thor, God of Thunder, Son of Odin, Lord of Asgard Imes Borden. And the hammer by your side is Mjolnir, all right.

Speaking of the movie though, my Thor has picked up an astonishingly annoying behavior, which is to throw food on ground because it’s good, because it’s bad, because it’s nap time, because it’s Thursday… just, watch. This is my entire life right now.

To top that off, we have now mastered the art of walking, which means the next great challenge is to smash into places mommy and daddy don’t want Thor to be. I’m sure it does look rather harsh to see a hallway of nothing but closed doors to places that couldn’t possibly be dangerous, like an unattended bathroom or the closet where we keep all of the disinfectants and OTC medication. But Baby’s answer is to test every door, because one of these days this will happen:

Who’ll be weak and powerless against doors then, Mommy?

At this point, I’m torn between just letting him have The Hammer because in spite of imminent danger it’s easier than taking away the beloved Fisher-Price style Mjolnir…or perhaps letting young Mr. Odinson Imes Borden learn that with power comes great responsibility. I could do that by showing him a carefully edited version of the first Thor movie. A pretty good argument could be made that Chris Hemsworth Thor has educational value when watched with mommy.

Whoo-boy, I was in exceptional form last night. As far as I know I’m still married, meaning Mac is either a patient or paperwork-averse man. I’m not looking that gift horse in the mouth.

Last night I FINALLY fully understood a lesson my mom gave me when I was 8 or so, during one of the dozens of tornado warnings that come with being a kid in Nebraska. For real, we went through a phase where we kept a blender downstairs and everybody could have fresh, homemade Orange Julius while we waited to see if anything was serious. My grandparents had been caught in the Night of the Twisters (Grand Island, Nebraska, June 1980). We weren’t flippant, just not panicking every siren. We knew about warnings vs. warnings.

A bad storm came through last night. I was awake on Baby duty, it has been 12 days since he had a cold, so he’s been due for another since four days ago. It’s relevant to mention I was on some low-middling level pain meds, because I waaaay overdid it seeing family July 5th. The next two docs I’m seeing this month essentially do this when their office reports I’m on line one:

Last night, at 1:10 in the morning, I heard a horrifying sound: it was an extreme ripping against our back screen door, 12 feet from where I was sitting. We’ve had it fly open, patio furniture blow over, flowerpots break; this was none of these. It was a lot louder, and there was a break between sounds. The first part sounded like somebody trying to punch through the all-glass door, the second sounded like someone trying to rip the door wide open.

I didn’t stick around for the next sound. I ran into our bedroom, turning on the light and forcing Mac’s CPAP off of him. In a loud, clear voice (Mac is very hard of hearing without his aids and seeing your lips) I told him I thought someone was trying to get in. That I was sending him to investigate, and I was going to stand at the baby’s door. To his credit, Mac didn’t even question this. He marched out there like a gladiator in boxer briefs, turning on the floodlights and Being The Protector.

So, Mama Bear here is back in the hallway, standing in front of the baby’s room…doing what, exactly? Well, I had my phone, 3/4 of the way to calling 911. I am not ashamed to admit I have practiced what I’ll say in different scenarios in case I’m scared and the actor trick of calling “line!” isn’t gonna do much for me. But other than that…what the hell was my plan?

No idea. Lizard Brain was driving the train. The ONLY thing in reach would have been something out of the small hallway cabinet that Mac uses to store the few bottles of alcohol we own. So Braintrust over here thinks “I could hit the intruder with a bottle!” Yes, if this person has a knife or a gun, I’ll be locking the baby in and guarding his door by christening the criminal like a new ship.

For .23 of a second it occurred to me that ownership of a handgun would make me feel safer in that moment. In a more reflective moment later I rewound my scenario: a woman on medication, scared out of her wits, using her Lizard Brain to make decisions, shaking like a Jell-O shot in a paint mixer…with a gun. Forget about loading the damn thing, I probably would have bled out there on the floor trying to claw through the fucking safe to reach the gun. My cause of death would have been listed as ripping out of nails, teeth and fingers attempting to open a SAFE. Official verdict, death by irony.

In the end, it turned out the winds had rearranged our supremely heavy deck furniture for us, some things were blowing away, and something probably hit the glass door with great force. Mac, god love him, was back asleep by 1:30. My adrenaline and I were up well past 4:00. It’s 8:30 in the morning and I’ve still got a knot in my stomach. Hm. I should probably ask about bowel obstructions. But my point remains; I was scared as hell, and in that moment the thing that made the most sense in Primal Mommy Mode was to put myself between anything and my son.

So, what does this have to do with tornadoes? When we were very young, during a tornado warning we were in the downstairs bathroom, ready to go right under the stairs, a place I HATED because I once saw a mouse there. But, in my little kid mind, I could still see mice<tornadoes. I asked my mom what she’d do if we heard a twister coming, and she said that my sister Robin and I would crouch on the floor with our hands protecting the vulnerable back of our necks. Then, she would huddle over us wearing a blanket, protecting our bodies with her own. My seven-year-old mind exploded. Mom didn’t act like this was a big whoop. Just, yeah, I’ll cover you guys. With my own body.

I never forgot it because WHOA. That was a lot to take in. Seriously.

Well, it took me about 33 years, but I get it now. Thanks for your Lizard Brain, mom. The next time we have a tornado warning, do the Orange Julius thing. If I were you, I’d incorporate my new Lizard Brain tradition: pick up the big bottle of Jameson Irish Whiskey. The bigger, the better.You never know when you might find it useful.